Preparing the test cluster

To keep things simple and reproducible, the APM stack is deployed on a single-node k3s cluster created with k3smp.
This setup is intentionally minimal: one control-plane node, no workers, just enough resources to run SigNoz comfortably.

Cluster configuration

Below is the environment file passed to the k3smp script during cluster creation:

Cluster creation

The cluster is created using the following command:

Create k3s cluster

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Once the cluster is up, we can validate access using k9s with the generated kubeconfig:

Access cluster with k9s

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Cluster overview

Installing SigNoz

SigNoz is installed by following the official Kubernetes installation guide. For local testing on k3s, a few Helm values are adjusted to better fit the environment.

Helm values

Key points of this configuration:

Use the default local-path storage class provided by k3s.
Expose SigNoz via NodePort to access it from the Multipass VM.

Helm installation

Install SigNoz via Helm

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Verifying deployment

Once deployed, all SigNoz components should be running in the signoz namespace:

Testing SigNoz UI

The SigNoz UI is exposed using a NodePort. Accessing it confirms that the backend and ClickHouse are correctly wired.

During the first visit, the onboarding screen is displayed:

Monitoring the k3s cluster with SigNoz

SigNoz provides a dedicated K8s Infra chart that installs pre-configured OpenTelemetry collectors across the cluster. This enables out-of-the-box visibility into:

Node and host metrics
Kubernetes API metrics
Pod, namespace, and workload-level signals
Logs, traces, and cluster events

Why K8s Infra?

The K8s Infra chart deploys OpenTelemetry collectors as agents and gateways, ensuring full coverage of both node-level and cluster-level telemetry.

K8s Infra installation

Values file

The following values are used to install the K8s Infra chart into the existing signoz namespace:

Helm install

Install SigNoz K8s Infra

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Infrastructure visibility

After installation, the Infrastructure section in the SigNoz UI starts populating automatically.

In the Kubernetes section, detailed metrics are available for namespaces, pods, and workloads:

Next steps

With the base APM and infrastructure monitoring in place, the next step is to explore:

Application-level instrumentation
Distributed tracing
Logs correlation
Alerts and SLOs

This foundation already provides strong visibility into the health and behavior of the k3s cluster.